The Government’s decision to end the scheme allowing vulnerable child refugees into the UK was branded “shameful” by Labour’s Yvette Cooper.

Ministers announced on Wednesday they would halt arrivals under the scheme in March once they had reached 350 – despite expectations homes would be offered to as many as 3,000 vulnerable refugee children.

Speaking on BBCDaily Politics, Gyles Brandreth suggested his former party had used the recent Commons debate over the UK’s European divorce to hide the Dubs announcement.

The former MP, who left his post in 1997, urged the UK to be more “generous” and scrap the decision to stop accepting refugees.

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Gyles Brandreth hit out at the withdrawal of the Dubs Amendment

We should be a generous country and we should be seen to be doing the right thing

Gyles Brandreth

“Last year [Lord Dubs] secured a great success, he managed to persuade the government of the day to change its mind and introduce what is now known as the Dubs Amendment, which allows quite a small number of children who do not have older people to look after them to come into this country and be taken care of local authorities,” he said.

“It’s not asking a lot and we are still a very prosperous country, we should be a generous country and we should be seen to be doing the right thing by these children – it looks disappointing.”

Mr Brandreth said there was a definite “possibility” the Government had used the recent debate to disguise their actions, branding it “unnecessary”.